These self portraits have always brought a smile to my face. Just the way that bundles of wire are snaking around everywhere, seemingly zip-tied together. It looks so haphazard, and yet you know those zip ties probably cost $5 million to engineer and everything is meticulously planned out.

They have a full sized mockup of the vehicle that the cables are "built" on, to size, by hand. Then they are baked out in a vacuum to remove contamination that might outgas during the mission, and installed on the actual spacecraft.

Amazing work. You'll see a few actual zip ties here an there, but for the most part everything is hand tied with lacing cord.

Just one part of the entire team of engineers, scientists, fabricators, technicians, managers, quality assurance inspectors, and lots of other jobs that were needed to make Curiosity a reality. All of equal importance.

That is my hardware. I was the cognizant engineer for the goggle-looking covers that protected those 4 cameras and another 4 on the other side of the rover during landing (another engineer built the cameras). I took the hardware from a blank sheet of paper with the question "is there room/power/mass to have dust covers for the hazard avoidance cameras on the rover?" written at the top to delivering it to be installed in ATLO. I last saw it (and Curiosity) in person on June 13th, 2011, during a final test we performed in ATLO. My hardware is now sitting on the surface of Mars. I can only hope that someday my great-great grandchildren will see it in person again.

...That is my hardware. I was the cognizant engineer for the goggle-looking covers that protected those 4 cameras and another 4 on the other side of the rover during landing (another engineer built the cameras). I took the hardware from a blank sheet of paper with the question "is there room/power/mass to have dust covers for the hazard avoidance cameras on the rover?" written at the top to delivering it to be installed in ATLO. I last saw it (and Curiosity) in person on June 13th, 2011, during a final test we performed in ATLO. My hardware is now sitting on the surface of Mars. I can only hope that someday my great-great grandchildren will see it in person again.

Awesome! Didn't know we had anyone at Ars involved. Can you actually see the dust cover in that picture? I've been curious what those things look like.

...That is my hardware. I was the cognizant engineer for the goggle-looking covers that protected those 4 cameras and another 4 on the other side of the rover during landing (another engineer built the cameras). I took the hardware from a blank sheet of paper with the question "is there room/power/mass to have dust covers for the hazard avoidance cameras on the rover?" written at the top to delivering it to be installed in ATLO. I last saw it (and Curiosity) in person on June 13th, 2011, during a final test we performed in ATLO. My hardware is now sitting on the surface of Mars. I can only hope that someday my great-great grandchildren will see it in person again.

Awesome! Didn't know we had anyone at Ars involved. Can you actually see the dust cover in that picture? I've been curious what those things look like.

The covers are tucked up behind the springs in that photo, since they have been opened.

Here is a video of a deployment test we did on the Engineering Model. It's attached to some ground support equipment that stands in for the front of the rover. The view is from the side (90 degrees from the photo of the hardware on mars). It was shot at 1000 fps and is played back at 30, so it's slowed down to ~1/33rd of actual speed (the covered opened quite quickly).

Here is an animation showing one of the rear covers opening. In the front all 4 cameras were covered with a single cover; the rear cameras are split into 2 pairs on either side of the radiators and RTG, so there was 1 cover per pair in the rear.

I assume there's no provision for closing those covers once they've been opened, is there? Latch and spring-load, and that's it? I'm just wondering if there's anything that can be done for protection in the event of a dust storm or similar threatening condition.

I assume there's no provision for closing those covers once they've been opened, is there? Latch and spring-load, and that's it? I'm just wondering if there's anything that can be done for protection in the event of a dust storm or similar threatening condition.

Nope.

In over 10 rover-years on MER, the HazCams have stayed clean enough to fullfill their engineering function despite exposure to dust storms, etc. The MSL HazCams are a built-to-blueprints copy of the MER ones, and because the rover is larger, they are located even farther off the ground than the ones on MER.

The reason for my dust covers was to protect the cameras from the dust and pebbles that were kicked up by the engines on the SkyCrane during terminal descent and landing. They were opened just a few minutes after landing, and that's where they will stay for the rest of the mission. The one time use design is much simpler than a design with a requirement of repeated actuation.

The MAHLI instrument on the turret, on the other hand, gets placed down close to rocks all the time, is located on the turret with the sampling system that might kick up dust, etc, so it has an actuated cover that can open and close.

They are contact prongs. They allow the robotic arm to preload the drill into the rock with a known amount of force. In addition linkages attached to the prongs lead to microswitches at the rear of the drill that detect when the drill is at too high an angle with respect to the rock based on the differential motion of the prongs.

(I also worked on the sample handling system and CHIMRA as a support engineer before I was responsible for the dust covers. The Planetary Society blog entry is an excellent overview of these systems).

"From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep," said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. "Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them. This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."

"From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep," said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. "Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them. This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."

Very cool. It's good to get direct confirmation that this location looks a bit more interesting than the previous sites the other 3 rovers landed at. Can't wait to see more!

I dunno, dropping Opportunity right into Eagle Crater and and finding all of those hematite blueberries popping out of the walls was pretty awesome.

Oh, sure. But one of the first things Curiosity finds is evidence for flowing water!!! Talk about the possibilities for further interesting discoveries . . .

The blueberries were evidence for flowing groundwater, if not surface water. And it was already known from orbital surveys that they were going to drop Curiosity onto an alluvial fan, this was simply further confirmation. I don't deny that it's exciting, in the same sense that all new data from any of the rovers was exciting, but so far there's been nothing to blow one's socks off. I expect that to happen when they finally make it to the clay bearing strata at Mt. Sharpe. The area they're at right now was probably laid down in the relatively recent geological past during the rare surface water events, which is expected to still occur occasionally. The really interesting stuff happened in the distant geological past when the surface water wasn't transient and was actively submerging sediment.

The area they're at right now was probably laid down in the relatively recent geological past during the rare surface water events, which is expected to still occur occasionally.

I was going to ask this as a joke, but now I'm actually wondering how well Curiosity would handle the unlikely event of being partially or fully submerged. I'm sure the question comes up at some point when people are designing machines to drive around on other planets.

The area they're at right now was probably laid down in the relatively recent geological past during the rare surface water events, which is expected to still occur occasionally.

I was going to ask this as a joke, but now I'm actually wondering how well Curiosity would handle the unlikely event of being partially or fully submerged. I'm sure the question comes up at some point when people are designing machines to drive around on other planets.

I doubt it was even a consideration, and if it was, they would probably consider the fact that it even happened to be an event worth the loss of the rover. The area where the rover is right now is known to get reasonably warm, which would evaporate/sublimate off any near-surface water. Not an expert in Martian geology/climatology by any means, but I would expect water would only be available in that area during the periods of the Martian Milankovitch cycle that would encourage cooler weather and sustained water deposition at those latitudes, possibly as glaciers (which are known to exist in other areas), which results in the occasional water burst as the climate warms again.

The area they're at right now was probably laid down in the relatively recent geological past during the rare surface water events, which is expected to still occur occasionally.

I was going to ask this as a joke, but now I'm actually wondering how well Curiosity would handle the unlikely event of being partially or fully submerged. I'm sure the question comes up at some point when people are designing machines to drive around on other planets.

I know that Curiosity is not in the region where it happens, but I'd like to see a "live" video of what happens on the "black spiders" sites. Not too close of course, because I can't see the robot surviving a close encounter with anything that could create those marks.

Wonderful. A 2 billion dollar rover travels through millions of miles of space to land on Mars, and right when it's about to do some real science, gets distracted by the shiny. Next thing you know it's going to start chasing it's own tail and rolling around in the sand.

This was from the FB page for the rover, I've not seen anything else about it yet nor any additional details from NASA.

I would rather the thing not start falling apart just yet, but I'll await further info.

I dunno. Zooming in, the shiny thing almost looks partially buried--not like something that just fell off the rover. Maybe a white-ish rock/pebble or something that looks shiny against the drab red background.

I dunno. Zooming in, the shiny thing almost looks partially buried--not like something that just fell off the rover. Maybe a white-ish rock/pebble or something that looks shiny against the drab red background.

While doing science like shooting stuff with a laser or with x-rays they've also made a rather large panorama:http://gigapan.com/gigapans/117546There are some really flat stones there. Almost like slate.